Injured journalist smuggled out of Syria

BEIRUT -- Syrian rebels smuggled a wounded British journalist out of the besieged city of Homs and whisked him to safety in Lebanon yesterday, activist groups said.

Thirteen Syrians who were trying to help rescue Paul Conroy and other trapped Western reporters were killed in the operation, according to one of the groups.

The whereabouts of three other foreign journalists also stuck in the rebel-controlled Baba Amr neighborhood was unclear. French reporter Edith Bouvier was wounded in the same rocket attack last week that wounded Conroy and killed American Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik. Colvin's family in East Norwich said Tuesday they are calling on the U.S. government to help bring Marie Colvin's body home.

Their bodies, as well as those of Frenchman William Daniels and Spaniard Javier Espinosa, may still be in Homs.

Their harrowing ordeal cast a light on the horrors of life under siege in Homs, a stronghold for government opponents waging an uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule. Hundreds have been killed in more than three weeks of relentless shelling of the city, many dying when they ventured out to forage for food as a humanitarian crisis grew more dire by the day.

A top UN official released a new death toll for the 11-month-old uprising, saying well over 7,500 people have been killed. Activist groups said yesterday that the death toll had surpassed 8,000.

Just days after Western and Arab nations met in Tunisia to forge a strategy on how to push Assad out of power, Tunisia's president Moncef Marzouki said yesterday he was ready to offer asylum to the Syrian leader as part of a solution to the conflict. But the chances of Assad accepting such an offer were close to nil.

The UN human rights chief said the situation in Syria has deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said her office has received reports that Syrian military and security forces "have launched massive campaigns of arrest" and an onslaught against government opponents that has deprived many civilians of food, water and medical supplies.

Pillay told an urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council that "hundreds of people have reportedly been killed since the start of this latest assault in the beginning of February 2012."